If you live in Santa Cruz, I'm sure you know any number of truly amazing artists. I think you should meet another one. It's time you met Sugar Percussion. Tonight their custom five piece Honduran Mahogany drum set built in Santa Cruz made its way onto the stage at the Oscars thanks to Maroon 5 drummer Matt Flynn. The Oscars is a big stage and slowly but surely, Sugar Percussion is doing big things.

Founded in 2011, Sugar Percussion specializes in custom stave-built, solid wood drums. Rooted in nearly 20 years of custom woodworking, Sugar Percussion drums are conceived and built like fine furniture, carefully and precisely designed, dedicated and deliberate in their construction and custom to the nuanced particulars of every client. There is no ‘stock’ model. Every drum is built from and specifically to the deliberations and conversations between player and builder.

Before Maroon 5, Black Crowes drummer, Steve Gorman, was one of Sugar Percussion’s first clients. Introduced to the company through one of their snares, Gorman immediately ordered the rest of his full kit, all built from a single plank of Eastern Black Cherry. Quoting his immediate response to the delivered kit… “Exactly how drums are supposed to sound, exactly how they’re supposed to feel.” Gorman used the kit throughout the final Black Crowes tour, and subsequently ordered a second kit made from Alaskan Yellow Cedar for his latest project, Trigger Hippy.

On the recording side of the glass, producer Eric Valentine was also introduced to the company through a single snare. A full kit and 3 snares later, Valentine continues to be a treasured ‘family’ member, as well as a tremendous resource. It was through 3 weeks of correspondence between Jefferson and Eric that the Eric Valentine Signature Recording Kit was born. Aiming to design a better kit made specifically for recording, the two employed shallow depths, thicker shells, blunter bearing edges and a dimension schedule based on prime numbers to inhibit sympathetic resonance between drums. All of this and more rendered a controlled and balanced sound ideally honed for studio use, scratching every itch of a meticulous, perfectionist producer, as demonstrated in a video produced by Jefferson and Eric using only a single microphone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FzziEGoUfQ

Sugar Percussion continues to build recording, live and hybrid kits and snares for a wide range of clients including Gadgetbox Studios (Santa Cruz), Blackbird Studios (Nashville), The Blasting Room (Ft. Collins), SIR (New York City), as well as backlines regularly for bands in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York
City.